David Wilson

"When I was a young child, my Grandmother gave me an old box camera as a
gift. She had used it when she was younger, but it had just been sitting in
the garage for the past years. I was pleased with the gift, thinking that
it would look great with some of the other old cameras(mostly Instamatics)
that I had picked up at garage sales. It never occurred to me that it was
capable of actually taking pictures. After all, look at the size of the
film it must take! They don't have that kind anymore. Years went by, until
recently I stumbled across this very webpage, and found out that yes,
indeed, pictures can still be taken with these things! I immediately
went to work identifying the camera I had, and found out that it was a
Brownie Hawkeye Flash. Also, since my model says "LONG" on the long
exposure pull up button, it could take 120 roll film(who's existence I had
learned about since the time I first acquired the camera.) without
modification. I went to the camera store, picked up some Tmax, and waited
for a good opportunity to shoot. It came when my family and I went up to
Fairplay, Colorado, and visited a recreated mining town. Carefully
composing each picture, I took all 12 frames. It was a very fun experience.
When I got home, I went into a dark room to rewind the film off the 620
spool and back onto the 120(my lab had to send the film out, and I didn't
want to lose me 620 spool.) What an ordeal! I somehow got the film back
onto the 120 spool, after many trials and tribulations in the total
darkness. I drove over to the camera store, and had the film sent off for
development. During the two weeks wait for processing, I discovered that
there was a lab a mere two minutes from my house that could process black
and white, and give me back a contact sheet. I shot a roll of film around
my house and at my local community college, which I attend. I dropped off
the film, this time wound onto the 620 spool, and a few days later received
a contact sheet with my photos on it. Surprise! Ten out of 12 turned out!
My little brothers slightly messed up the sheet, so the scans you see here
do have some flaws in them because of that. A week later, I received back
my original roll of film, with nice shiny 5x5 prints! They all looked great,
and I was rather surprised to see that my compostition actually seemed to
better than it is with my 35mm SLR. I think the waist level finder helped me
out with that. So, I think that it the future I will continue to shoot with
my Brownie, and show all these digital happy consumers that you can take
good pictures with a little plastic box with a lens on the front!"
-David Wilson